You are typically not too concerned about the SQL requirements of the Microsoft Assessment and Planning toolkit for the typical Hyper-V deployment. You can use SQL Server Express and the 2008 limit of 4 GB database or the 2008 R2 limit of a 10 GB database won’t be an issue. Network traffic is usually not a big concern either, but it might be if you decide to assess branch office machines across the WAN, or assess hundreds of machines at once. Anyone dealing with a larger farm may want to plan for disk space, using SQL Server Standard/Enterprise/Datacenter, and the potential impact on the LAN/WAN.
I decided to put together a spread sheet based on the details that are shared by Microsoft. I’ve taken the details, put in the formulas, and all you need to do is enter 3 figures:
- Number of machines to discover
- Number of machines to assess (do the performance monitoring)
- Length of time in hours to run the assessment
The spread sheet will give you four figures:
- The size of the resulting SQL database, allowing you to decide between the SQL Express that is included with MAP, and other editions of SQL Server.
- The network impact of the discovery process (maximum – because this is variable depending on the amount of WMI data returned)
- The network impact of starting an assessment
- The continuing network impact of the assessment every 5 minutes
You can download this spread sheet from here.